Besides, she was busy worrying about my two younger sisters who totally didn’t mind or find it odd how high-strung their mom was. But then again, they were her children. Denise’s only ‘real’ children as she emphasized whenever I did something that tarnished that damn pristine reputation she claimed to have. I know it sounds very Cinderella-ish, right? I can assure you that it was nothing like that. Much more boring in fact.
Denise had never treated me poorly or hurt me in any way. Hell, I don’t think the woman had ever even raised her voice at me. Instead, I was subjected to extreme standards and an underlying pressure of never being ‘good’ enough to be her daughter. This is how mommy issues happen, folks.
I would have talked to my father about it, but I hadn’t seen Alexander Rose in what felt like years. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what the man looked like.
I would have assumed he and my stepmother had split if it wasn’t for the packages, letters, and phone calls the other three received. Nothing for me, ever. I had concluded the man hated me, so that was nothing new. If I had to guess it was probably something stereotypical about me reminding him of my mother and his wife that he lost on my sixth birthday.
So of course, I was on the outs while he paid attention to a woman and her two daughters that I’d never even met until right after my mother died. My two stepsisters were from a previous marriage I assumed since they were fourteen. I had to be honest, though, I’d never asked.
It really didn’t matter though, did it? He hadn’t married Denise for love. Hell, I had no idea if he’d loved my mother. Instead, he married her to keep this estate in functioning order, something that she did with the precision of a drill sergeant. It was actually rather impressive.
“Ophelia?” Denise’s squeaky voice had my attention, shifting it from the vibrant butterfly to her dark eyes. This morning her golden complexion and long blonde hair looked particularly styled and I wondered why. Until I realized I didn’t care. It was just one more factor that separated me from the three of them. I suppose my father had the same ivory complexion and dark hair as myself, but it was usually just the four of us, so to say I looked ‘different’ was an understatement.
No matter how frustrating I found the woman, I would never deny that her and my two stepsisters, Alice and Cindy, were objectively absolutely stunning. They were model tall, thin, and had golden hair that reached down to their waist. If I had to put us in celebrity terms? The three of them were Gigi Hadid, and I was Bella Hadid. They were unbiasedly all American looking and beautiful, and I was...beautiful, sure. I wasn’t going to be falsely modest about that, but not in a traditional sense. I had been told I was a bit intense to look at and I had no idea how to take that.
My face was heart-shaped, with a smaller chin and high cheekbones that were complemented by a red pair of lips and dark arched brows. My hair was a thick chocolate and onyx shade that hung down my back in loose, impossible to control, waves.
The part about me that was alien looking though? My eyes. They were a smoky gray color, like fog, that featured a starburst of purple around the pupil. My stepmother once called, and this is not a joke…gaudy. How in the ever-living fuck can your eyes be gaudy? It wasn’t like they were god-damn costume jewelry! You know what? It didn’t even matter.
Sometimes someone’s words hurt far more than the truth of the situation. Or in my case? Being different, no matter how attractive or good my personality was, made me feel like shit most days because no one in my town looked like me. As one of my friends once stated, I had pixie-like characteristics. No. I have no idea what he meant. I also had no idea if I wanted to take that as a compliment or not because my stepmother had so clearly screwed up my head and perception on this stuff.
I wasn’t even a particularly short or tiny person. Okay, well that’s not completely true, I’m 5’ and a half. That half part was very important to me, thank you very much. Besides that, I had more ass and hips than boobs, I was thin and well built. Pretty fucking normal, if you ask me. But then again, Denise was the one making the guidelines, not me.
“Sorry,” I took a sip from my coffee and answered her, “I slept poorly.”
Her eyes swept over me critically as she nodded. “Yes, I can see that, those circles under your eyes are getting worse and worse. Do we need to see a doctor?”
“I would rather not.” I pushed down the panic that hit me out of nowhere at the thought of taking medicine. “I’ve just been stressed. You know, at the end of the school year, graduation and all.”
I would literally say anything to avoid taking medicine. Every. Single. Time. I had a horrible adverse reaction to it. Sure, physically I was fine but the things I saw? They were like vivid nightmarish hallucinations. I really didn’t need any more weird shit happening to me than what was already going on.
So, I made sure to stay away from prescription drugs. Hell, any drugs. The only luck I seemed to have had been with natural products…if weed counted as natural. Also, herbal supplements but honestly, I didn’t use either very often.
Denise stared at me for a moment before nodding. “If it gets worse, I expect you to tell me. We have several events this upcoming month and I can’t have any of you looking as though you are anything but the picture of health.”
That was just one more aspect of Denise that made us so different. She cared. A lot. About everyone’s opinions within this small, albeit affluent community. I just didn’t have time to. If I had to guess, it was probably her way of keeping entertained while my father was away on government contracting jobs in the Middle East. It sure as hell kept me busy.
When she began laying out the weekly plan, I found myself zoning out once more. I hadn’t been lying to Denise actually. I had been stressed out about the end of my senior year and even more stressed about hiding my secret. The oddities that had begun occurring on my eighteenth birthday three weeks ago.
Don’t get me wrong, there have always been shadows of odd creatures and things at the edge of my reality, right out of the corner of my eyes. Right out of reach. However, it had gotten far worse lately, and I could feel the energy building up around me, almost as if it was preparing for something. The problem? I had no idea what. It was starting to become impossible to ignore.
A pulse of pain hits my chest as the thought of whether my mother would have known how to handle this entered my head. Had she faced the same problems? I didn’t remember much about my mother beside the stories she would tell and the fact that she believed magic was real. Something Denise contributed to the ‘brain cancer’ that took her life. You know, hallucinations and shit like that. Except there was one problem with that…I didn’t think that was how she died.
I remembered the night of my birthday, how I felt. I remembered the boy in the maze. I remembered it all but knew at a young age to keep my mouth shut until I could figure out what the hell was going on around here. I’d yet to be successful. I didn’t think it was out of reach, but just like with the rest of this town, I couldn’t seem to grasp it fully. I didn’t like to take leaps or chances until I had surety that the outcome would be like I expected.
There was something different about Village Worth, and in some ways, I could admit that I was too much of a coward to explore what that was.